A new examination of Aristotle's Poetics has confirmed my conviction that a number of old and new puzzles can be solved by the same analytical method which in recent years has been successfully applied to a good many of his writings, giving us a better insight into the growth and successive elaboration of his thought. The importance of the Poetics seems to me to justify any attempt to discover the original train of thought and to distinguish it from later additions (...) . Readers will be aware of the enormous number of books and papers dealing with the problems of this work and will forgive me for referring to a selection only. (shrink)